Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am aware that IREFs will have to report but that does not take away from the statistics. There was a legal obligation on them to report if there was a taxable event and, therefore, we have to assume that the other IREFs did not incur a taxable event at the time. It is still the case that for IREFs which had a taxable event, dividends were disbursed. Some €649 million was disbursed but only €9 million was collected in tax. While there are measures, which I have welcomed in the past, they will not suffice. Whenever we receive the figures for 2020, which will have been delayed for two years, there will not be a 20% or 25% tax rate. If one calculates the dividends and the tax collected, there will not be such a rate, for the reasons we outlined yesterday.

It boils down to the fact that the structure is not good. There is no benefit. I would love to hear what the benefit is. There is no benefit to allowing for such a massive tax relief for such structures. What is the counter-benefit to the State? I do not believe there is one. Rather, I believe they play a negative role in respect of the pricing of property and so on, and it is scandalous that we do not charge capital gains tax on the disposal of assets by a company, which is a fund or structure, given that everyone else has to pay it. The Minister spoke about getting the balance right but he will tax only the dividends. I outlined earlier the nature of the institutional investors.

Many of them - 60% - are non-resident. Therefore, it is only dividend withholding tax that will apply. They will have the ability to reduce that. In such circumstances, there will be a serious issue here. If all of these investors were Irish, there would be a different issue. There would be a different taxation structure for Mary, John and Joe. It would fairer, in my view, but that is not what is happening here. It is massive. It is €27 billion. It can go up and it can go down, but it is going up. I strongly believe this needs to take place. I have not heard anything from the Minister to suggest that this is not required. The changes in this Finance Bill will not have a major effect. For a start, they will not level the playing field. We are still going to see these companies having an effective tax rate that will possibly be in the single digits.